The Chagossians’ journey to Mauritius was brutal and inhuman. They were packed like sardines in a tin. “Their situation seemed to me very similar to that of Africans shipped to America as slaves. There were 150 passengers on a boat meant for fourty to fifty people, with little food or ventilation.

In Mauritius Marie Lisette Talate and her fellow Chagossians lived, and continue to live, in the worst conditions with no sewerage, drainage, electricity and water.

The area is infested with rats, mosquitoes and cockroaches. Survival in Mauritius is extremely difficult for the Chagossians. There have never been jobs, welfare services for them.

Marie Lisette Talate is a stalwart and a front-runner in human rights. She got involved in community mobilization and established community based anti-discrimination demonstrations and campaigns. She fought the British injustices unswervingly from 1973 until 2002. One of the most outstanding protest campaigns that she led was one that took two weeks on Port-Louis Street outside the British High Commission in 2000.

A firm of solicitors in London supported the Chagossian’s right to return to their place of birth and to get compensation for pain and suffering. The outside help was so significant that it gave power to the small Chagossian population. It attracted the media to write about their life experiences in Mauritius.

In 2000 November the British High Court ruled against the Chagossian displacement and now the Chagossians have a right to return to Chagos Island. As a result of further campaigns they now have rights to full British citizenship, which were awarded in 2002. This has also given them permission to access skills and work experience in England and do practical work in Chagos for the development of that island.

Marie Lisette Talate has courageously withstood poverty, homelessness and distress caused by the uprooting of her ethnic group.

Many of her people died in their youth because of depression and poverty-related diseases like tuberculosis. She was not discouraged by the arrogant treatment she and her people received from the colonial power that deported them. In Mauritius too, they were discriminated against and treated as outcasts. “ Marie Lisette Talate’s clear headed attachment to her native Diego Gargia has been an inspiration to her compatriots, because now they all feel that their struggles have won them measurable success.

They can return to their homeland. That is an achievement beyond measure!” (1000PeaceWomen).